Thursday, the Executive Director, Fyneface Dumnamene Fyneface said the project would not only power the communities with stable electricity, but would also provide job opportunities for the teeming youths in the region.

Fyneface stated that with the initiative, youths’ attention would begin to shift from engaging in oil bunkering to utilising clean and renewable energy in powering legitimate businesses.

He said, “Contrary to what we know in terms of power generation, this is a totally clean and renewable energy, every other power generating source either uses gas, diesel or PMS. This energy is being sourced from solar and that makes it very different from whatever we used to have and it pushes the call for fossil fuels to be left in the soil, because fossil fuels are not doing us any good and now we are having alternative sources from solar.

“With the solar off-grid electricity, we are setting up in communities, we are not going to have power failures anymore, we are not going to have low current and we are not going to have a system whereby you pay for electricity and you don’t enjoy that electricity, all those things are not going to be there anymore, we have brought on board a sustainable clean and renewable energy that is also affordable for communities without electricity in the Niger Delta to mitigate oil theft.

“Because those community people normally depend on petrol, diesel and kerosene from artisanal refineries, but with solar available they will now jettison those fossil fuels and then use the renewable energy in their communities and when everyone is using solar there is not going to be a market again for the artisanal refiners who are breaking the pipelines to sell their products, they will begin to stay away from that, they will build their businesses using the electricity in a peaceful environment without being shot at, without being chased by the security agencies as it is currently happening in the Niger Delta.”

Fyneface further noted that the initiative would foster economic activities in the communities as electricity dependent businesses would flourish following the uninterrupted supply.

“Welders in those communities, hairdressers in these communities, barber shops in these communities, shop owners in these communities, now no longer going to depend on fossil fuels to power their houses.

“The core of this project is to create youth employment, to create alternate livelihood opportunities for youths in the Niger Delta, youths involved in pipeline vandalism, crude oil theft, artisanal refining leading to environmental pollution and at the same time we are also contributing to the fight against climate change the Niger Delta and across the world.

“So we are not just generating electricity for communities, we are also providing what we call funds, resources for the community for them to be able to productive usage once the electricity is being produced, the community would use the electricity to empower themselves by going into businesses that would yield good profit for them.

“The project is going to contribute enormously to the youths in the Niger Delta and mitigate the acts of Crude oil theft by creating jobs for those youths who are involved in artisanal refining in the region.”

The Executive Director disclosed that the project which had kick stated in Umuolu community, in Ndokwa East Local Government Area of Delta State, offers a full capacity of 81.9 kilowatts, enough to adequately electrify the community and businesses.

“The project has enormous economic benefits, we are starting in Umuolu community, Ndokwa East Local Government Area of Delta State, that community has been without electricity since creation, you can imagine since God created this world, the community has not had electricity, so they are very excited to have this. So in that community, businesses would now have to sell off their generators, because they don’t need to power their generators anymore.

“This project is going to generate at full capacity 81.9 kilowatts of electricity to the community, that is the peak of its generation, but at the moment we are starting with about half of that by going into about 29.5 kilowatt for the communities.

“We will now look at how they are using the electricity, by the time we see that utilisation is increasing, we will begin to increase the capacity.

” If we release all the 81.9 kilowatts into the community, it will just be like when you have electricity and nobody is using it. So we are trying to follow up the community the way they are using the facility because we have a system that shows the electricity utilisation in the community, it is reading in the smart system we are running.”